


Play me like a violin

by etoilephilante



Category: Golden Child (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Reference Depression, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Soul Selling, but metaphorically, i don't know exactly where it happens either, jangjun is sexy, lord jangjun, probably something like the 19th century, this is a period drama but i don't know when exactly it happens, violinist joochan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27726839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilephilante/pseuds/etoilephilante
Summary: ‘His eyes hold the devil inside them. How else would he be so good, otherwise?’The room is large, its ceiling is high, and the walls are adorned with gold. Whispers, outraged yet impressed, sing along the sharp and rapid notes of the violinist who is standing in the middle of the room. Joochan’s gaze is fox-like and he looks at the crowd around him with a glint that oddly looks like contempt above his chin, propped on his violin.(Joochan is a violinist prodigy with a bad temper, because of this, he is rumored to have sold his soul to the devil. Words say that it is this mysterious man who seems to be the only one Joochan deems worthy to look at.)
Relationships: Hong Joochan/Lee Jangjun
Comments: 9
Kudos: 28





	Play me like a violin

**Author's Note:**

> hello, here i am new to the fandom and with an agenda: jangchan
> 
> i have three inspirations for this work:  
> \- paganini having potentially sold his soul to the devil to be That good  
> \- if anyone has read anna karenina by tolstoi, the part where vronski and anna leave to Italy  
> \- if anyone has read the picture of dorian gray, the general aesthetic and the beginning
> 
> the prompt was supposed to be used as an ateez project, but then i started stanning golcha and 1) joochan really plays the violin 2) wannabe rtk stage
> 
> that's it i think??? anyways, cheers to joochan's not tuned violin, enjoy!!!

‘ _His eyes hold the devil inside them. How else would he be so good, otherwise?’_

The room is large, its ceiling is high, and the walls are adorned with gold. Whispers, outraged yet impressed, sing along the violinist's sharp and rapid notes who is standing in the middle of the room. Joochan’s gaze is fox-like, and he looks at the crowd around him with a glint that oddly looks like contempt above his chin, propped on his violin.

He is used to it, the judgmental glares, the gossips they utter behind their hands into their friends’ ears, even when they’re still basking in the sound of the music. He does not stop, ever, to get offended by the way they badmouth him – instead, he merely aches to be even more outstanding.

The violin’s notes dance in the room, charming; their sound gives the illusion that mischievous and tiny pixies are flying all around the vast hall, taunting the guest with their malevolent energy.

‘ _He surely has sold his soul_ _to Him. How_ _else could he play so fast?’_

His fingers, calloused, rough, are light as a feather and stroke the strings with the delicacy and the urgency of a desperate lover. The power and strain in Joochan’s wrists are invisible, and he makes every one of his gestures look effortless.

‘ _You’re speaking so rashly. He’s a prodigy.’_

The music enticing, despite all the critics, the ear is still attentive to Joochan and the eye won’t leave his sight. He looks dazzling, graceful under the lights from the massive crystal chandelier hanging just above his blond head. If only for the arrogant twitch in his eyebrows and the accusations thrown at his face, the rumor would be that he’s an angel. He seems to be the only one graced with light among all the guests; the crystal’s reflections pour down on him and make him look like he’s playing under a rain of diamonds.

Joochan is of those who have kings kneeling at their feet, treasures layered before them. Of those who offend by the adoring eyes turned at them that they choose to ignore. It is the ignorance he feigns that brings him the harshest words.

With one last stress of the bow on the violin’s strings, the room falls into awed silence.

‘ _Just look at him, his head high, he won’t look at anyone_.’

Indeed, Joochan does not spare a glance towards the few that, done admiring from afar, have decided to make a tentative step on his way. However, his golden curls falling on his droopy and content eyes, he feigns ignorance again and takes large strides to the white doors of the hall, where a dark figure is standing still.

But a hand grasps at his and stops him on his way.

Gasps, offended, echo in the room when Joochan’s eyes turn steely and displeasure sets itself onto the corners of his mouth as he shakes off the clasp around his hand. But he does not spare another glance at the unfortunate soul that has turned his playful foxy eyes into cold winds.

‘ _Such a bad temper, it’s a shame._ ’

Joochan does not care. The only person he sees is Jangjun, who sports a sardonic smirk and whose pitch-black hair blends into his strong eyebrows. He laughs when his soiled hand is taken into those of a man who has hell burning in his smile, to be kissed by a stinging mouth onto the back.

‘ _Who is this man?’_

‘ _A stranger. The one the prodigy has sold his soul to?’_

*

Joochan grew as the son of a respected man in the high society and a ballerina whose name remains on the tip of everyone’s lips whenever people see him. He had barely come of age when he met Lee Jangjun for the first time on a peaceful afternoon at Lord Choi Sungyoon’s estate. He was playing at the piano for hours already, angrily repeating the same measures when his fingers weren’t fast enough to keep up with the notes on his sheet, while his older friend was slowly commenting on his progress. With the butler and a set of tea came Jangjun and his mocking yet lighthearted grin.

To say that the still naive and childish Joochan was shaken by this newcomer’s presence would have been an understatement. Sungyoon was the one to welcome Jangjun into the large lounge room with a brotherly embrace while Joochan, his chubby cheeks slowly turning pink, was standing up and watching with curiosity making his eyes glimmer, the piano entirely forgotten.

‘Oh, they do say you look like your mother,’ Jangjun said when he noticed the young boy staring at them with wide eyes.

It took perhaps five seconds for Joochan to regain his spirits, left astonished by Jangjun’s deep and husky voice – each one of the instruments Joochan was taught his whole life seemed dull to his ears, from that point on. ‘Hopefully, sir learns to know me for me and not for what the people still mourning a woman they have never known have to say about me,’ the boy eventually replied when he was done staring, hiding his flustered state behind a petulant remark. It made Sungyoon’s friend breathe a laugh.

‘Isn’t he just lovely?’ the house’s owner chuckled, goodhearted. Beside him, Jangjun nodded, unwavering.

‘And what do you wish people to say about you?’ he asked, his smile almost fond. ‘Do you want them to speak of your beauty, your youth, or your wits?’

It almost felt like a wish to the king of Hell when Joochan replied with his chin held high and a determined crease in his eyebrows, ‘If they have to remember me, it should be for my music.’

Jangjun only smiled wider, and Joochan got the fleeting feeling that it was as if the man had understood, that he would make it come true, before quickly shaking that bizarre thought off.

‘You see, this young master is a music prodigy,’ Sungyoon was the one who elaborated, when neither Jangjun nor Joochan seemed to speak more, simply scrutinizing each other.

‘Oh, a musician!’ Jangjun looked exhilarated, clapping his hands twice and finally moving from his spot to sit on the armchair where Sungyoon had previously sat to supervise the youngest. ‘Do play something, then, show me you’re worth more than merely your parents’ son.’

‘He should play the violin, he excels at it, right, Joochan?’

So, Joochan played the violin. At this time, he wasn’t yet at the point to make his fingers bleed to reach for perfection. He was just a young boy who dreamed of glory. He was immediately enamored with the man who asked him to play and silently promised to give the boy what he wanted.

The violinist startles out of his reverie when, behind him, the noise of glass shattering into pieces on the floor echoes in the room. A scream soon follows, and a maid rushes to him, grabs his hands, and laments the bloody cuts scattered over his palms that slowly stain his white sleeves. Joochan comes back to reality to see his music room in shambles, feathers from ripped cushions flying everywhere and the furniture thrown over.

‘What happened, young master?’ the maid asks, panicked, as she fusses over his red hands.

Joochan looks at his feet, where his violin lays crushed, its strings broken, then at the poor lady who’s heart is racing, scared of her young master’s worsening temper, despite his ordinarily kind and soft nature.

‘I can’t seem to make anything sound good anymore,’ Joochan whispers, his face emotionless and his voice hoarse.

‘Should I call your father?’

‘Do not. I want Lord Lee Jangjun.’

So he waits, refuses that anyone washes his hands, he only waits, standing on the music room’s balcony that overlooks the paved court in front of the family estate. He comes inside only when he sees a coach approach and Jangjun come out of the car, look up, and smile at him.

‘In what poor state do you receive me,’ Jangjun tells Joochan when he eventually comes into the music room, still messy.

‘Do you remember when we met?’ the blond chooses to answer, turning around to look at the older man.

‘You were such a cute boy, so keen on making a name for yourself. You did it, so why do you seem to get only gloomier?’ Jangjun leads Joochan to sit on the ruined couch, looking disapprovingly at his wounded palms.

‘Glory is not enough. I wish to be the best violinist in this era.’

The wish echoes in the room, and time seems to stop when Jangjun raises his dark, bottomless eyes at Joochan. Again, it looks like he’s promising to give him everything he wants. What he really does, however, is take Joochan’s hands in his and kiss their wounds, despite the dried blood that tastes like iron against his mouth.

‘How would you achieve that if you keep hurting your precious fingers?’ Jangjun glances at the broken violin, lifelessly laying on the tile floor. ‘And if you keep breaking what’s dear to you?’

Jangjun catches Joochan into his steady arms when he bursts into sobs, strokes his red tear-stricken cheeks, and mutters soft words against his forehead.

*

‘ _I heard he has dismissed all the house servants_.’

As always, whispers follow him when he appears at the tea house, but Joochan mindlessly sits at its terrace and pretends he does not hear the speculations nor notice all the curious glances thrown at his way. His hands are hidden inside thin gloves, but somehow his anger a few days ago has reached his peers’ ears.

‘ _What’s the use of being a virtuoso if he has such an ugly soul?_ ’

A waitress brings a steaming hot tea and pastries on a silver plate, but Joochan cannot get himself to smile at her or even to divert his gaze away from straight ahead of himself to even look up at her. It offends even more. And he simply keeps on pretending to watch the passers-by crowding the square.

He moves only to impatiently look at the time on his watch and feels choked up when he notices there are still a few minutes left until the set appointment hour.

Joochan reminisces of another time he sat here to take a breather after a long time practicing and failing to go through the whole partition, only to have a man he barely knew sit next to him at his table. ‘My, my, fancy seeing you here,’ Jangjun said with a grin that Joochan quickly learned to be constant on his handsome face. ‘These days, I do hear about you a lot.’

Joochan’s face, at that time still boyish, but dark circles were starting to carve themselves under his eyes, broke out into an innocent smile. Behind them, two elderly women were murmuring about how pleasant and delicate the Lord Hong Father’s young prodigy son was. ‘ _I hear Lord Hong has a lot of expectation_ _s_ _for him._ ’

The young master finally feels like he can breathe again only when Lord Lee Jangjun arrives after excruciatingly long minutes spent alone. He wears a beam full of mischief on his face that doesn’t fail to make Joochan feel like his lungs are filled with air once again.

‘What beautiful creature do I have the pleasure to meet here?’ Jangjun says in lieu of greetings as he sits down beside Joochan, and one of his hands comes to join Joochan’s on the table to lace their fingers together, in the open and with no shame.

‘ _What an outrageous act_.’

‘Crows are so talkative around here!’ Jangjun has never seemed to know how to feel embarrassed and does not show traces of it when he passes insults off as innocent remarks. It draws a soft chuckle out of Joochan as Jangjun shamelessly kisses his temple while sending a pointed glare behind them. The blond feels like he hasn’t laughed in weeks – it’s a relief to know he hasn’t been turned into a motionless statue, despite the frown that seemingly does not leave his forehead these days.

Jangjun’s smile widens when he feels more than he hears Joochan’s laughter against his face. He rubs a thumb on the back of the younger man’s gloved hand.

‘How is Sungyoon?’ Joochan asks and pays no mind to the other customers around them as he leans into Jangjun’s shoulder to shield himself.

‘Just fine. We were both surprised to hear from a city away that you apparently dismissed everyone?’ Jangjun raises an eyebrow at the violinist, and Joochan’s heart twists when he finds doubts inside the older man’s eyes. He straightens and puts on a smile that Jangjun knows is too wide to be sincere.

‘I thought you were the one who said not to believe the words running in the streets,’ he says, his vexed tone revealing his emotions. Jangjun sighs – is it relief? – and squeezes his grip around Joochan’s covered hands. ‘It’s so surprising whenever I go out and learn a little bit more about my own private life through the whispers behind my back, though.’

‘Joochan.’ Jangjun’s tone is firm. He tugs at his hand and prompts the younger to look at him. Joochan’s smile drops, and anger shines in his pupils. ‘You are misunderstanding.’

They stare at each other for a few seconds, but Joochan is the one who yields first.

‘I did no such thing,’ he eventually admits, softly, ‘I dismissed only one person, and it was because I caught her spreading the word about what happened last week,’ he snorts. For a brief moment, he looks like his past petulant and child-like self again, before sadness takes over his features. ‘Why is everyone so keen on making me appear so pathetic?’

‘You did well. You always let too many people badmouth you.’

Joochan takes his teacup to his lips and winces when he finds out the beverage has turned cold already. ‘Yet it only seems to have fueled the fire more.’

Silence falls upon them for a while before Jangjun changes the subject after calling the waitress over to ask for more hot water.

‘What about your hands? Are they better?’ His tone is slightly mocking, just the right way that instead of making Joochan’s anger spike up, it brings a smile out of him.

‘I still can’t play. And you were gone for so many days. I thought I would die of boredom.’

Joochan slumps back into his chair, and Jangjun scoffs, endeared. ‘Whose fault is it?’

*

It is rare for Joochan to hold concertos. But when he does, newspapers speak only of it. It is also one of the very few instances Lord Hong Father shows his face to his son.

Joochan is not satisfied _per se_ , he thinks there’s something amiss, but even as the orchestra goes through their pages long partitions, he can’t find what is it that’s bothering him. However, when finally the opera is filled, and it is time to begin, he can do nothing but play despite the way his heart drums in his chest with dissatisfaction.

The music is to say enchanting to everyone else. It is perhaps the only time they stay silent, and their murmurs don’t sing along with the instruments.

But when eventually the music dies down, it leaves a second for the spectators to inhale a deep breath and burst into applauds, words fuse either amazed or frightened.

Joochan is still dissatisfied when he steps out, and he goes to meet Lord Lee Jangjun in the reception hall. The older man offers him a smile and a flute of champagne. Around them, people buzz like a swarm of bees.

‘I can see you are not pleased,’ Jangjun says, sneaking a hand to the small of Joochan’s back. His face is indecently close as he talks to him in a hushed tone into the crook of his ear. ‘You looked beautiful, but even from so far, I could see your demons tear your soul apart.’

The blond sighs and resists the urge to run his hand through his locks, tamed and pulled back. ‘Truthfully, wasn’t there something missing?’

Jangjun looks at him with a smile full of pity and sadness. ‘The passionate boy you left behind.’

His words pierce through Joochan’s chest like arrows, but even if his face crumbles with hurt, he has to regain his composure fast because an ominous voice calls for him and makes his guts turn into stone. His father is stalking closer, ministers following behind him, and the son steps away from Jangjun. He feels cold when the latter’s touch falls from his back.

‘What beautiful pieces you composed, your son sure is as outstanding as the rumors say, Lord Hong,’ one of his father’s companions is the first to speak. Joochan forces a polite smile on his lips, while his father’s severe face imperceptibly twitches.

‘I would hope so if this son of mine does not wish to follow my path, the least I expect from him is to excel in music,’ Joochan’s father says with bitterness barely concealed.

Lord Hong Father left a long time ago to the capital after his wife’s death, leaving a ten-year-old alone in the family estate with house servants and his old wet nurse to bring him up. Joochan has never missed anything. All he wants has always been given to him, except for his parents. His father only mentions the son he has locked in a golden jail when he is asked, when he has to act like he is not a bad man.

Joochan settles with nods and fake laughter when he finds himself too choked up to be anything else than a spectator to his father’s companions’ praises. For the most part, he avoids Lord Hong’s serious stare.

‘Who might you be?’ he asks Jangjun, who has stayed unusually silent next to the musician, his right hand clenched behind his back.

Joochan knows very well that his father is aware of who the man is, for no one will shut up about the strange man that follows the prodigy like his shadow, but just as he always does, he does nothing outwardly and pretends he has never heard of the murmurs about his son in public. Joochan will have to wait until morning when his father has left the estate with a letter on the breakfast table listing all the reproaches he has held back in front of Joochan’s face.

‘No one but an acquaintance,’ Jangjun replies, oddly timid, which surprises Joochan, who sends him a curious glance. ‘A simple admirer of your son, sir.’

The father and the lover look at each other with faint hostility.

‘And the name is?’

‘Lee Jangjun.’

The ministers who came with Joochan’s father aren’t paying attention anymore, conversing among themselves. The violinist watches, mortified, a rictus stretch his father’s mouth, feeling one of his typical icy jabs form on his lips under cover of formalities, knowing Jangjun isn’t too influential that he has to pretend to be nice.

‘Well, in that case, I suppose you have nothing more to say to my son and have better occupations elsewhere?’

Joochan desperately wants to speak up, step closer to the older man, and feel the warmth of his palm against his back again, but he can do no such thing as the other two lead a fight through their glares, as he notices Jangjun’s joints turn white behind his back. He nearly feels betrayed when Jangjun is the first one to relent.

‘Of course, it was a pleasure to meet you. Sir,’ Lord Lee Jangjun nods at the father, and then at Joochan, ‘young Lord Joochan.’

He feels it, the hope inside Jangjun’s soft gaze for Joochan to hold him back, but he merely stares, mute, at his lover’s back when he turns around and walks away. His father also observes Jangjun leave in silence.

When he looks down at the musician, he ignores the longing that threatens to appear on his cracking facade and changes the subject like Jangjun is a forgettable matter. ‘I can’t help but notice your creations become more and more decadent.’

Joochan looks up, apathetic. ‘I do not know what you are speaking about, father.’

‘ _I_ _shall_ _allow you to pursue music in any way you could want, and the blasphemous activities you have decided to take on_ _during_ _my absence, I choose to ignore_ _it all_ _. I have no say in the friends you make, but it is bothersome to hear about my blood’s immoral behavior. Thus I ask of you not to let every way this man to whom they say you have given your soul be perceived publicly. I_ _dare to hope that next time I will pay a visit, no more worrying words will stain my name,_ ’ is written on the paper Joochan finds on the breakfast table the next morning when his father is long gone.

_*_

Jangjun has many ways to make Joochan forget.

At first, his sole presence was enough, and thus they started to meet often. After many months of coincidental encounters, Joochan asked Lord Choi Sungyoon’s help, and in the letter the latter sent back, he was inviting the young master to the nice cottage that belongs to the Choi domain, with the promise to ask a particular friend of his to come. Joochan was ecstatic at the idea.

The violinist arrived shy and with his cheeks red, anxious to formally see the Lord who couldn’t seem to leave his mind.

‘I must have misunderstood something because I am positive Sungyoon told me that you were supposed to take your mind off your worries,’ Jangjun said when he found Joochan frantically scribbling notes, his violin in his arms, and his hair completely disheveled.

‘I am resting my mind. I have so much inspiration,’ Joochan grinned at the older man who slowly made his way to him, ‘I feel like my mind has never been this clear.’

It was Jangjun’s voice that brought the sweetest melodies to Joochan.

And as time went by, his compositions mirrored the way Joochan’s heart beat, in love. Jangjun and Joochan exchanged their first kiss during a childish play of hide-and-seek in the woods near the cottage, behind a large tree. Then, they continued to meet often. Jangjun moved from the capital and found an apartment in the city, and either Joochan invited him over at the Hong estate, or he joined the older at his apartment on evenings he received guests. Jangjun always listened to Joochan’s music with attention. One evening, the guests had slowly left Jangjun’s apartment, but the young musician stayed, having found a new obsession in the lovely lemon liquor he had spent the evening sipping. They drunkenly went on and on and on about nothings, and then Jangjun kissed him and confessed three sweet words against Joochan’s red mouth that tasted like lemon candies. The next morning, Joochan came home with giddiness rumbling in his stomach.

It is then that Joochan felt like nothing ever could make him unhappy again.

But as time went by, his compositions started mirroring not only the pure and innocent love that moved him, but the demons that made him look paler, more exhausted, more impatient every time Jangjun saw him, as well. He wavered when the words people had to say about him changed drastically. Suddenly, he was a spoiled brat, his relationships too improper, his talent too unreal not to hide ominous secrets. The music he overexerted himself to practice, the recognition he had wished for, Joochan started to hate it all. Until he was left with only one thing he doesn’t detest, he can never despise, Lord Lee Jangjun.

Jangjun, who is playful, never fails to listen to him and tells him his compositions are beautiful, whose voice makes the demons eating him from inside simmer down.

Jangjun has many ways to make Joochan forget.

It is why it doesn’t take him long to rush to Jangjun’s apartment as soon as his father has left. Apologies spill from his mouth the minute he finds the older in his living room after his valet opens the door and doesn’t try to stop him from entering.

Lord Lee Jangjun is still in his nightclothes, as it is still early in the morning, reading glasses perched on his nose, holding a fuming teacup, and he looks up from his newspaper.

‘Did you stay up all night, fretting over me?’ Jangjun, however, laughs, putting his cup and newspaper on the stand beside his armchair to stretch an arm towards Joochan, who doesn’t hesitate to find shelter on his lap. Relief washes over him when Jangjun kisses the back of his hand, no sign of resentment in his gestures.

The blond forgets all about the worries slowly tearing his insides apart.

‘I can’t stand it anymore…’ he admits, tears filling his fox-like eyes that usually hide his emotions behind an arrogant and unattainable air.

‘What?’ Jangjun asks against his cheeks. ‘The talks, your father, or hating what you think is the only thing that allows you a place in this world?’

The older man never hides from Joochan what he truthfully thinks. He never pretends to love something he despises. Even if Joochan has once tried to conceal his deteriorating state of mind from Jangjun, the latter has never been naive. He clearly noticed all the ways the prodigy lost his cheeks' fullness at first, then his boyish air, and finally, his innocence. The younger let him see to what extent he was suffering when he understood that Jangjun wasn’t about to leave him alone if he learned to know what they both have decided to call his demons.

Instead of answering Jangjun’s question, Joochan wraps his arms around his neck. ‘Let’s leave.’

‘Where? How much time?’

‘How much time is needed, wherever away from the city.’

Jangjun hums, stroking the violinist’s blond curls. He smiles into the crown of the younger man’s head. ‘When?’

‘Now!’

Joochan sometimes looks like his younger self in the brief seconds he allows himself to demand the impossible. Jangjun laughs wholeheartedly. ‘Let’s settle on a week. How about the coast? We would be free.’

The blond moves away to look at his lover and beams. ‘Let’s not tell anyone.’

*

They end up telling Lord Choi Sungyoon, expecting a visit.

After a week spent buzzing from impatience and not seeing each other, Jangjun eventually comes to get Joochan, who is waiting on top of the stairs leading to the house’s entrance. The smile stretching his lips is similar to one of a kid, and he jumps on his spot, surrounded by suitcases. He can’t resist running down the steps to throw himself into Jangjun’s arms when the latter comes out of the hansom cab.

Behind them, Jangjun’s valet comes down as well to help Joochan’s old butler to drag the young master’s suitcases to the car.

‘We should go now if we don’t want to miss the train,’ Jangjun smiles down at the younger man.

The older sent a billet the day before informing Joochan that all matters were arranged and that they could leave without worry, as well as two train tickets.

Joochan feels no hesitation when he grabs the hand Jangjun is holding out to him and goes inside the cab.

For its part, the train station is busy, filled with people, and the strident cries of the trains’ chimneys don’t fail to give the blond a headache. Yet, he doesn’t find it in himself to complain, too happy with the prospect of getting away. Jangjun and Joochan walk side to side with two gentlemen's attitudes, but there is no mistake in how their hands brush and play together between them.

The ride is a long one. They find themselves in a cabin with a nice man, Mister Son Youngtaek, but Joochan lets Jangjun converse with him while he falls asleep not even half an hour after the train has left the station.

He wakes up hours later with his mind unclear and no sign of Jangjun next to him.

‘If you are looking for the Lord you came with, he has mentioned something about buying refreshments,’ a soft voice answers the question that must have been painted all Joochan’s sleepy face.

He nods with a smile at Son Youngtaek.

Sure enough, Jangjun comes back not long after with food. Both he and their cabin companion laugh when they hear the musician’s stomach rumble pitifully.

But eventually, they reach their destination. The village is pretty and most drastically different from the city where Joochan has grown up or even the capital. Instead of gray, the shades here are blue. It is as lovely as a painting, the way they can watch the sky merge into the sea at the horizon line from the porch of the small house that apparently belongs to one of Jangjun’s uncles.

‘How do you like it?’ Jangjun asks with his nose nuzzling Joochan’s blond curls after he has instructed his valet and the younger man’s butler where to put all the suitcases. His arms are wrapped around the musician’s waist, and despite the very few differences between their figures, Joochan feels Jangjun’s body heat drape over him like a warm coat.

‘It’s perfect,’ he sighs, letting the back of his head fall onto his lover’s shoulder.

*

It takes Joochan two weeks before he eventually looks towards his violin.

Joochan discovers the sea and falls in love with it. Jangjun is happy to show the younger man all the wonders of the small town they escaped to, and the latter has rarely felt his heart beat this peacefully. Perhaps it is the peculiar smell of salt and fish on the marina, or the cold winds on the shore that make him feel light as a feather, or perhaps it is Jangjun’s hand, warm, that never seems to let go of his own.

Together, they meet many people and often find themselves walking, either in the charming and old citadel built on a cliff that hovers above the harbor or on the beach. The sea is colder than expected when the older man leads Joochan to take a bath inside one day, but the latter refuses to leave the comfort of the infinite painting he feels he has dived into for hours. Jangjun laughs at him when Joochan joins him back on the sand where he was reading with a watchful eye onto him, and the younger fingers are wrinkled and his lips blue. However, despite the bitter and stinging taste of salt on each other’s lips, it seems that their tongues can’t stop dancing together.

But it is always at night, when they’re surrounded with darkness but the gaslight forms a yellow and red cocoon around them, that Joochan feels for the first time like he is allowed to exist without having to keep an eye on the monsters that have been following him since youth. The sea isn’t the only thing he discovers during their escapade, he also finds out what it feels like to sleep every day on the same bed as the man he loves.

The moments Jangjun runs mirthful and teasing fingers along Joochan’s skin, the moments the violinist sinks teeth into his lover’s bare and pale shoulder in an attempt to muffle his own pleasured moans, even if familiar to them, have never felt this fulfilling. Joochan learns of an entirely new emotion on the third night when they’re laying on the ruffled bed covers with their breaths ragged, and Jangjun’s firm chest presses against the younger man’s broad back as his calloused palms rub circles into the inner part of Joochan’s meaty thighs. He realizes that the heat he can feel from their intertwined bodies is so much more different when he knows he’s going to fall asleep with it, wake up with it, and find it again the next evening.

So, it’s with a calm heart that he finally opens his violin case. He is so relieved when his fingers wrap around the wooden handle of the instrument, and no hatred tears his insides apart, that he erupts into bits of laughter and sobs at the same time. On that day, Jangjun is woken up with a gentle melody filling the house.

And then, it never stops again. Music becomes a constant in the house.

‘Won’t you come to sleep?’ Jangjun asks, one night, an eyebrow raised at the living room’s entrance.

‘I’ve made something for you! Come, come!’ Joochan answers instead, running to the older to take his hand and drag him on the armchair near the fireplace.

Jangjun’s smile is fond, loving, and endearing as he watches a grin bloom onto the blond’s face while he plays a piece that oozes love, that replaces the gray cloud usually hanging over Joochan’s head like Damocles’ sword with a colorful halo.

The older man has never been quite good at reading people, except for Joochan. But he thinks it’s because for all the languages he has been taught, the one he understands the best is Joochan’s language. For all the lies Joochan tells, he cannot hide what his soul yearns to say when he plays. Each one of his notes is a telltale sign of the feelings he tries so hard to keep tucked into his chest, and Jangjun knows every one of them.

‘What do you think?’ Joochan inquires, joining Jangjun’s side once he is done playing.

‘He is back,’ the older man chuckles, bringing the blond’s knuckles to his lips, ‘the boy who plays out of love, not out of desperation,’ he murmurs against his skin. ‘I hope he intends to stay.’

Joochan’s smile turns sour. ‘I have never known how to make him stay. I’d perhaps believe that I really sold his soul to the devil if only I was better when he’s not here.’

Jangjun laughs wholeheartedly, pulling his lover onto his lap. ‘First, you wanted to be known for yourself because you do not wish to be associated with your parents, now you’re longing for perfection as a revenge for hurtful words. Perhaps it is time you realize you do not have to play for others.’

Though Joochan knows this to be true, he can’t control the frown that takes over his features. ‘What purpose do I have to reach, what right do I have to live if not this?’

Jangjun squeezes his arms tighter around Joochan’s torso and buries his nose right under his jaw. ‘You feel this way because you have grown defined by the expectations held for you. It is a shame you’re merely human and not exempt to stumble.’

The blond stays silent, mulling over these words. He watches the night become darker and darker through the large windows, he watches the black and ominous sea and the waves’ white foam reflect the stars. The burning wood in the fireplace crackles. Joochan lowers his gaze to look at Jangjun. He takes the time to be mesmerized by the way red and orange flames cast shadows onto the older man’s flawless skin, and their reflections dance into his pupils when he stares back at him.

‘When I look at you, I often catch myself thinking that they can wish me hell however much they want, if the devil is you, if sinning looks like this, then I do wonder what there is to be scared of.’

Jangjun seems puzzled for a brief second before he bursts into laughter. Joochan lets out a chuckle, amazed by the sheer happiness on his lover’s face.

‘You’re silly,’ the older man whispers against the corner of the violinist’s mouth, while the latter runs lazy fingers onto his black bangs.

When they’re entangled under the bed covers, when they have no way to know where they begin and where they end, Joochan finally confesses against Jangjun’s collarbones. ‘I don’t know how to get myself out of this vicious circle because their words are true even when I wish they were not. I am my parents’ son, and I love a man.’

The older doesn’t reply immediately, and when he does, his voice sounds oddly choked. ‘There is no fault in being born as ourselves. We can’t change who we are, unfortunately, so please, just live selfishly. I can’t bear to see you in pain.’

Before they fall asleep, Joochan’s whisper resounds in the quiet room. ‘I’m sorry for all the worries I bring you.’

*

Their escapade comes to a stop a month later, a few days after Lord Choi Sungyoon’s visit. Joochan is unsuspecting of their safe bubble being on the verge of bursting until their friend asks to speak to Jangjun privately, and the latter comes out of the office with slightly trembling hands, and Joochan knows well enough his lover to recognize when he’s nervous.

After Sungyoon leaves, Jangjun spends most mornings in the office, writing letters at the large ebony desk surrounded by shelves filled to the brim with large books. Joochan, worried, often stays in the corner of the room, on a velvet armchair, writes or reads, and sends frightened glances at Jangjun. Sometimes the latter looks up and notices him, smiles at him, and shows him to wonders hidden in this imposing office. He learns the uncle who owns this house is a senior officer viewed by the king as a war hero and Jangjun is expected to follow in his path – and apparently, he is doing well enough that he is offered a higher position, is what Sungyoon came to announce, Jangjun eventually admits.

Joochan is an egotistic man, he is greedy, yet, when Jangjun sits down next to him on a late afternoon he’s leisurely reading on the large balcony that overviews the beach to tell him he has to go back to the capital in a few days, the musician isn’t so cruel he asks him to stay. But it is undeniable that his heart clenches and he finds himself unable to smile.

‘You could stay here if you do not want to go back to the city,’ Jangjun says, taking his hand in an attempt to make him look at him. ‘Or…’

Or Joochan could come to the capital with Jangjun.

It feels too improbable because Joochan’s presence in the capital wouldn’t be welcomed by Lord Hong Father because there is enough noise about them a city away from the capital but Jangjun is too highly ranked to be seen with Joochan as his shadow.

But at that moment, Joochan realizes that after knowing what it is like to fall asleep in the same bed as Jangjun day after day, he feels desperate not to lose that precious treasure. He steels his heart and decides he’s not afraid to go against his father for the first time in his life. So he looks at his lover with doubts all over his features but a determined mind, and squeeze his hand.

‘I don’t want to hide anymore. I am willing to come to the capital if only you are not afraid my presence will tarnish you.’

Jangjun stares at him with a proud grin. ‘Let’s risk it. If you are by my side, there is nothing I could be scared of. As long as you promise to be entirely mine, I am entirely yours.’

They seal their vows with a kiss and share one breath.

When they come back to reality, nothing has changed. Vipers still whistle at Joochan’s sight, his demons have yet to be chased away, and Jangjun can never introduce his lover as he really is instead of a close friend, despite the bed they share in the capital. But on days Joochan will make his fingers bleed trying to climb the highs of perfection, Jangjun will know to catch him when he falls; and when Jangjun will be threatened by a vexed father, Joochan has learned not to be scared to speak up and remind his father that he wouldn’t be able to bear the shame of a trial for his own son’s sins.

‘I am entirely yours,’ Joochan promises against Jangjun’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this work *daeyeol voice* like and subscribe (not for real, leave me your thoughts and kudos, I'm a starved jangchan shipper)
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/mingiopom) / [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/etoilephilante)


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